The Secret Agent (1907) builds a triangle of conspiracy, which is destroyed, by the self-interset of its participants. Mr Verloc, employed by a foreign embassy to incriminate an anarchist group, instead destroys his family, his illusions, and his own life, in a terrorist act gone utterly wrong. Conrad's ironic and troubling novel exposes the futility of political extremism and the strength,andvanity of human illusion.